Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T08:08:29.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Transcending the Confines of Economic and Political Organization? The Misguided Metaphor of Corporate Citizenship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

J. (Hans) van Oosterhout
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the critical reconceptualization of Corporate Citizenship (CC) proposed by Néron and Norman appropriately focuses on connotations that enable us to distinguish between CC and the all-inclusive notion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), I argue that they fail to properly account for the misguiding potential of the features of political citizenship they propose to develop further in CC theorizing. It is concluded that the notion of CC is better dispensed with altogether, and that a reorientation on concepts that can truly transcend the boundaries of economic and political organization would benefit the field of business and society.

Type
Reply
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 35 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arlen, J., & Kraakman, R. 1997. Controlling corporate misconduct: An analysis of corporate liability regimes. New York University Law Review 72: 687–779.Google Scholar
Ayres, I., & Braithwaite, J. 1992. Responsive regulation: transcending the deregulation debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bamberger, K. A. 2006. Regulation as delegation: Private firms, decisionmaking, and accountability in the administrative state. Duke Law Journal, 56: 377–468.Google Scholar
Bohman, J. 1998. Survey article: The coming of age of deliberative democracy. Journal of Political Philosophy, 6: 400–25.Google Scholar
Bohman, J., & Rehg, W. 1997. Deliberative democracy: essays on reason and politics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Braithwaite, J., & Drahos, P. 2000. Global business regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Crane, A. & Matten, D. 2005. Corporate citizenship: Missing the point or missing the boat? A reply to van Oosterhout. Academy of Management Review, 30: 681–84.Google Scholar
de Bakker, F. G. A., Groenewegen, P., & den Hond, F. 2005. A bibliometrical analysis of 30 years of research and theory on corporate social responsibility and corporate social performance. Business & Society, 44: 283–317.Google Scholar
Elster, J. 1998. Deliberative democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fisse, B., & Braithwaite, J. 1993. Corporations, crime, and accountability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gardberg, N. A., & Fombrun, C. J. 2006. Corporate citizenship: Creating intangible assets across institutional environments. Academy of Management Review, 31 (2): 329–46.Google Scholar
Matten, D., & Crane, A. 2005. Corporate citizenship: Toward an extended theoretical conceptualization. Academy of Management Review, 30: 166–79.Google Scholar
Mayer, D. 2007. Kasky v. Nike and the quarrelsome question of corporate free speech. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17: 65–96.Google Scholar
McNeil, I. R. 1978. Contracts: Adjustment of long-term economic relations under classical and neo-classical, and relational contract law. Northwestern University Law Review, 72: 854–905.Google Scholar
Moon, J., Crane, A., & Matten, D. 2005. Can corporations be citizens? Corporate citizenship as a metaphor for business participation in society. Business Ethics Quarterly, 15: 429–53.Google Scholar
Néron, P., & Norman, W. 2008. Citizenship, inc.: Do we really want businesses to be good corporate citizens? Business Ethics Quarterly, 18: 1–26.Google Scholar
Nesteruk, J. 2007. Corporate speech as commercial speech: A response to Mayer’s Kasky v. Nike analysis. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17: 97–103.Google Scholar
Sarto, G. 1970. Concept misformation in comparative politics. American Political Science Review, 64: 1033–53.Google Scholar
Van Oosterho, J. 2005. Corporate citizenship: An idea whose time has not yet come. Academy of Management Review, 30: 677–81.Google Scholar
Van Oosterho, J.. 2007. Contractualism vindicated: A response to Boatright. Academy of Management Review, 32: 295–97.Google Scholar
Van Oosterhout, J.Heugens, P. P. M. A. R., & Kaptein, M. 2006. The internal morality of contracting: Advancing the contractualist endeavor in business ethics. Academy of Management Review, 31: 521–39.Google Scholar